There’s a lot to process from the past four+ days, and I’m still reflecting on how poorly the tech industry made its case, at least publicly. Venture capitalists are natural spokespeople for the startup ecosystem, but for this issue, we were the wrong face/voice.

When I joined Glossier in 2018, I was so excited to finally work for a woman CEO. It felt like an opportunity to challenge and expand traditional founder archetypes, in a way that would hopefully benefit the broader ecosystem. But the timing was…rough. For many reasons, some valid, some bullshit, the past few years have been tough for women founders. Of course, businesses have real problems, leaders make the wrong bets. But the ongoing fishing for drama, overtly gendered media inquiries…I have some truly offensive screenshots.

"Why now" is my favorite part of every startup story, and yet it's often skipped. It's the connective tissue to your broader context: what has changed about the world (technological, economic, behavioral, etc) that makes this problem solvable and your solution possible? “Why now” is also a great way to proactively address the question of competition. You can use it to explain why others have failed (today’s dynamics didn’t exist), why the goliaths in your space can’t adapt (they were built for a different world).

Today marks one year “on the road,” one year of living out of the same suitcases. We have now driven across the country three times + the length of both coasts.

A few random thoughts: 1) Time slows way down when you’re in a new place, because you’re paying so much more attention. That’s such a gift!

A story I think about a lot, as relayed to me by a friend: a woman fell in love, dated long distance, and decided to quit her job and pack up her life to move to a new country to be with this man. The day before she was supposed to board the plane, he broke up with her. She was crushed, of course. But she was also overwhelmed by all her potential future lives, now that she had cut ties with her status quo. She realized that, technically, she could now move anywhere, do anything. Her possibilities were limitless.

In the comms world it’s common and satisfying to organize audiences/stories/publications into categories like “consumer” and “business.” And while it’s important to be clear about your *primary* audience for any communication, I believe overall these distinctions are misleading. It’s increasingly useless to bucket people by news/content consumption. I see this every day! An article in Business of Fashion, a “trade publication,” gets screenshot and shared on Reddit, where our customers comment and discuss.

The AirPod fell out of my ear several feet away from the edge of the subway platform, but I’ve never seen anything more inevitable. RIP little buddy. Thanks for all the podcasts. While I’m understandably shattered, I’m proud of myself for:

1) Not lunging after it and becoming the first ever AirPod-related subway death.

2) Still going to the gym against all odds and without entertainment!!!

Back in November, just before moving to NY, I wrote a post about living and working in San Francisco/Silicon Valley, along with some of the lessons I’d learned. I decided not to publish because I was a little overwhelmed by life and couldn’t tell if it was any good. 🤷‍♀️ I just re-read my draft and while the part about my personal journey feels a little too self indulgent (heh), maybe there’s some value in putting the lessons learned during my 11 years in Silicon Valley out into the wild. So I’m going to be lazy and do it in twitter form.